Miss Mabel Orgelman, chairman of the civic committee of the local (McFadden) Post of the Silver Legion yesterday appeared at secret, hearings of the Congressional Committee to Investigate Nazi Propaganda with a proposal that the committee take up evidence tending to show Communist conspiracy against the United States Government. She did so with a vote of approval by the Silver Legion chapter, which backed her proposal at its meeting in the Turn Halle, Eighty-fifth street and Lexington avenue, Wednesday.
Miss Orgelman appeared at the hearings, which opened at two o’clock yesterday afternoon, in the Bar Association Building, armed with alleged evidence against the Communists. This is the first attempt on the part of the Silver Legion to divert the attention of the committee from Silver Shirts, definitely Fascist activities and the operations of alien-sponsored Nazi groups.
It is understood Miss Orgelman, who has become widely acquainted with Congressmen in Washington through years of campaigning for a great array of humane causes, is using all her influence to advance the Silver Legion cause against American Jewry.
Among the witnesses to appear before the committee yesterday was Fritz Gissibl, member of the National Socialist Party in Germany and recently resigned head of the League of Friends of New Germany. Gissibl was followed by Reinhold Walter, a naturalized American citizen, who was appointed by Gissibl, to succeed him to the leadership of the League of Friends of New Germany. Walter carried a shotgun into the committee room. He staunchly refused to explain his action or, to talk with reporters.
Friedrich Heiss and Hans Wuertz, the former publisher of Amerikas Deutsche Post which was once the organ of the Friends of New Germany, and the latter a secretary of the League of Friends of New Germany when that group was known as the American Branch of the German National Socialist Workers Party, also testified before the committee.
The committee hearings, which are expected to remain private during the entire session in New York, will be continued today and tomorrow. Among those to be brought before the committee, which was represented yesterday by its chairman, Representative John W. McCormack of Massachusetts is vice-chairman, Representative Samuel Dickstein of New York, and its counsel, William A. Hardwick, are Walter Kappe and W. L. McLaughlin, editors of the Nazi organ, the Deutsche Zeitung. They are to be heard today.
Subpoenas were issued on Wednesday to all the above named and also to Dr. I. T. Griebl, former head of the League of Friends of New Germany; Erich Lenz, a member of the League, and others whose identities have not yet been made known.
At yesterday’s hearings a number of men and one woman waited to be called into the committee room. They were adamant in their determination not to speak with a number of reporters who sought information. They refused either to identify their companions or themselves despite a barrage of questions.
Walter, particularly, standing in the hallway grasping his shotgun, appeared to be immovable with regard to announcing his identity. He sallied silently into the conference room, and after a half hour’s interrogation sallied forth again to prepare for the anti-Jewish demonstration at the Garden last night.
Gissibl, who remains in this country to counsel the Friends of New Germany and actively to lead their meetings in the East an### Middle West, also returned ho### after he had been heard. He was present again last night at th### Garden.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
